An increasing number of passenger vehicles manufactured today are equipped with supplemental inflatable restraints for vehicle occupants; these are commonly known as air bags. Currently, the air bag provided for the vehicle driver is mounted in a storage compartment located in the vehicle steering column. The air bag for the front seat passenger is located in the vehicle dash board.
It is conventional for the steering wheel hub or for the dash board to incorporate a door formed into a decorative panel. This door is normally rectangular for driver's side installations and for mid-mounted doors on instrument panels. The doors can be shaped to consistent with an instrument panel for top mounts. The door is separate from the surrounding panel area so that it can be swung open by the deploying air bag upon inflation.
Some of these air bag doors comprise a portion of the panel defined by a tear seam line of weakened panel material along three sides of the door including tear seams defined by channel segments, V-segments, cross V-segments, double channel segments, and star segments. This tear seam is fractured by the inflating air bag so that the door swings open about its fourth side, which functions as a hinge, to enable the air bag to properly deploy.
All too frequently, the tear seam outlining the door is visually perceptible to vehicle occupants. This visible door detracts from the interior styling of the vehicle and is a definite styling drawback, especially in the more expensive vehicles.
It is quite desirable to provide a decorative panel for a vehicle interior which incorporates a door covering the air bag storage compartment that forms part of the styling contours of the vehicle interior and is consequently visually imperceptible to occupants of the vehicle.